Why Bill Gates is Wrong on Class Size

Anthony Cody
"Why Bill Gates is Wrong on Class Size"
Article is found in "The Answer Sheet" Column by Valerie Strauss
Washington Post
Posted Online 3-05-11
URL:  http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/anthony-cody/why-bill-gates-is-wrong-on-cla.html

Anthony Cody was a middle school science teacher for 18 years in inner-city Oakland and now serves as a mentor/coach for new science teachers.  Though he appreciates Bill Gates attempting to help the education problems, Mr. Cody sees Gates' logic flawed in some areas - especially when it comes to more impoverished areas.  I know we have talked about class size before and about whether the research shows if it makes a difference, but in poorer areas class size does seem to make a huge difference.

Cody's basic points are:  1)  Gates wants to put 4 or 5 more students in the classes of the top 25% of teachers and then pay them more.  Cody says there is no reliable metric to measure the best teachers and there is no money in the budgets to give them an increase.  2)  The good teachers are leaving, so the problem is not getting rid of the ineffective teachers, but keeping the good ones.  3)  This to me is a HUGE point.  Cody says when he was teaching he had 32 students in each class with 160 papers to grade almost every day.  Adding 4 or 5 students per class would only increase an overwhelming caseload.  Also about a third of the kids in his classes suffer from post-traumatic syndrome because of severe home living conditions.  And adding more kids to the classroom will cause more teachers to leave as shown by over half of his mentored teachers are leaving because of stress and working conditions.

For people like Jeff who want to teach in Portland city schools, the issues he will have to deal with will be more intense already without having to add more stress to his job and the school district not being able to pay him more because of cutbacks.  Gates' suggestions are another case of a non-educator having well meaning, but ineffective ideas.  The irony of the situation is Gates' kids go to a private school where the class sizes are probably smaller.  Cody states most private schools of the wealthy have about half the class size of neighboring public schools.  Also, according to Cody, Mr. Gates' math does not work regarding how much money would be saved - possibly only $25,000 per school!  Incorrect ideas from non-education people is really starting to frustrate me - in a good way.  My suggestion is we as new teachers need to educate the non-teachers, because if we do not do it we will be the ones facing the situations Cody points out and it will not just be us who suffer for it but the kids and society as well.